When someone has attempted to control a person all of her life by berating her and calling her “stubborn” because she won’t do what they want, how does she decide to give that over to God and what does God desire to put in its place? That was the question facing me and a young lady as we talked about her character defects. She has bought others’ assessment of her and has struggled with how to be someone and something other than who she is in order to please people who have never been pleased with her. As she has embraced a personal relationship with Christ and grown in her knowledge of God and her own identity in Christ, I asked her if she thought she was stubborn. I told her I have observed a thoughtful young woman who listens and evaluates what others say and strives to bring the truth of God’s Word and Spirit to bear on it. What I see in her is resilience, strength, perseverance, determination, loyalty to those who nurtured her and caution with those who didn’t. The fact is that those who didn’t nurture her have tried to use her and berate her and the worst they have been able to say about her is that she is “stubborn.” After we finished she saw herself through a different lens…..that of the Almighty God who made her, not of the one foisted on her by those who tried to pervert the strength, resilience, determination, and loyalty given to her by God. Sometimes we think we need to change something when what we really need to do is visit it anew and call it what God calls it, not by the perverted label the devil’s devious minions try to put on it.
